The Traitors, Peacock’s reality TV competition, has revealed its cast for its upcoming Season 3, and one of the new stars will be British aristocrat Lord Ivar Mountbatten, second cousin to King Charles III and a direct descendent of Queen Victoria.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The Traitors, which operates similarly to a murder mystery show and a game of Mafia, has become extremely popular, and is Peacock’s most streamed unscripted original series to date. Hosted by Tony award-winning actor Alan Cumming, and set in Ardross Castle in Scotland, the show sees the contestants secretly marked as either “faithfuls” or “traitors.” The stars hope to eliminate each other in pursuit of a cash prize of $250,000, through a series of activities, round-table votes and secret murders.
Others in the new season include four previous Survivor contestants, Big Brother alums Britney Haynes and Danielle Reyes, The Real Housewives franchise faces like Chanel Ayan and Dolores Catania, Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval, and former RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen.
While U.S. audiences may, at present, be unfamiliar with Mountbatten, that looks set to change. Ahead of his debut on The Traitors, here’s what you need to know about the British aristocrat.
Mountbatten’s family tree and that of the Windsors are very closely related. Mountbatten’s father, David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven, was first cousin of Prince Philip. Mountbatten is a direct descendent of Queen Victoria and third cousin once-removed of Queen Elizabeth II. He is also the great-nephew of Louis Mountbatten, who was the last Viceroy of India, and was killed when the Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb on board his boat in August 1979.
Mountbatten is one of the godparents of Lady Louise Windsor, daughter of King Charles’ brother Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh.
In 1994, Mountbatten married Penny Thompson, British philanthropist and businesswoman. The ceremony was attended by Princess Margaret and Prince Edward.
Mountbatten and Thompson went on to have three daughters together— Ella, Alix, and Luli. The couple separated in 2010 and divorced in 2011.
Mountbatten made headlines in 2016 by being the first person in the extended British Royal Family to come out as gay. He opened up about his decision to go public in an interview with the Daily Mail, and in 2018 he married his now-husband James Coyle, who is an airline cabin services director.
According to an interview Mountbatten and Coyle did with Tatler in 2019, Mountbatten had always known he wasn’t straight, but was not sure he would ever want to come out after his divorce. But all that changed when he met Coyle in 2015 in the Farinet bar in Verbier, Switzerland.
“[Ivar] doesn’t hang around,” Coyle said of his husband. “And that’s the delightful thing about Ivar, he makes his mind up about something and sticks to it. There’s no game-playing, to a degree where you’re almost looking for the catch. He’s so straightforward and remarkably easy to love.”
The two were married at their home in Bridwell Park, and Mountbatten told Tatler that he was walked down the aisle by ex-wife Thompson, and that though no royal family members were in attendance at his second wedding in 2018, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh gave their warm wishes to the couple.
“They’re very supportive and think James is brilliant,” said Mountbatten.
According to Company Check, Mountbatten’s current total business assets are valued at £838k.
Previously, Mountbatten worked as a geologist and as director of the SCL Group, which was a British behavioral research and strategic communication company, which closed operations due to the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Mountbatten and Coyle’s country house estate Bridwell Park, located in Devon, southwest England, is now open to the public and can be reserved for weddings and large events. In 2020, the couple opened the Orangery Cafe at the estate. The Queer Spirit Festival, which includes DJ’s, workshops, and group ceremonies related to queer spirituality, is also set to take place at Bridwell Park in August.
This is not Mountbatten’s first foray into the world of reality television. He was on Keeping Up With The Aristocrats in 2022 and the 2019 season of the U.K. Channel 4 survival-based program Treasure Island with Bear Grylls, though he called his decision to go on the show a part of his “on-going midlife crises.”
